


Bloody Mary

by Anonymous



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Urban Legends, scary level 1: spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:31:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8415655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “She said that her cousins told her that if you go to the toilet, turn off the lights, stand in front of the mirror, and say Bloody Mary three times, this ghost woman monster thing will come out of the mirror and strangle you to death with her long wet hair.”  Pepper tilts her head, considering. Adam hums.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [jeongsindan2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/jeongsindan2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  Person A: You know that whole “Bloody Mary” superstition thing? With the mirror and the talking and whatnot…  
> Person B: Yeah…  
> Person A: Well I may have done it and got it to work, and hey would you happen to know how to perform an exorcism by chance, because Google wasn’t very helpful..

 

Dog yips when Pepper tumbles into Adam’s room, but it’s mostly only a little yip, because Pepper tumbling in through the window isn’t really anything new. Adam looks up from his maths homework, glad for the distraction from his problem sets. Unlike Wensley, he prefers to pass his time pursuing other—well, for lack of a better term—pursuits.

“Hullo, Dog,” Pepper says, muddy shoes smearing over Adam’s comforter, and chucks the black dog under the chin. He gives a happy bark, and proceeds to jump up, licking her face enthusiastically. Adam eyes the mud on the comforter, and shrugs. His mother would probably scold, but then again, his mother will never know.

Pepper slides off the completely mud-free comforter and plops down onto the floor with a thud, lap full of squirming Dog. “I’ve been thinking,” she says, and her eyes dart up to Adam, who’s ears perk. Of _Them_ , it’s generally universally agreed-upon that Pepper has the best ideas, but Adam makes them happen.

“I was in the girls’ room after gym class—” she gives a shudder, and Adam nods, already very familiar with her complaints on the subjects of girls and their changing rooms, “—and Nancy, she’s the one with the tropical fish collection?” Adam nods, no longer even pretending to pay attention to his maths, “—Nancy was telling us all about something she heard from her cousins in America.” Pepper’s eyes widen, and they both exchange small glances. America, the place with more than three flavours of ice cream.

Adam’s pencil rolls off the desk and lands on the wood floor with a small “tap”, but he doesn’t even notice.

“What did she hear?” he asks. Sometimes Pepper gets too much into the telling part of story telling and needs to be prodded, just a little, to the story part. But Adam doesn’t really mind too much, because the way she tells stories makes them real.

“She said that her cousins told her that if you go to the toilet, turn off the lights, stand in front of the mirror, and say Bloody Mary three times, this ghost woman monster thing will come out of the mirror and strangle you to death with her long wet hair.” Pepper tilts her head, considering. “Or maybe she’s the ghost of Mary, queen of Scots? I wasn’t quite sure because Louisa started screaming and the Miss Brown came in and scolded us for telling ghost stories, as if it isn’t Halloween.” Pepper sniffs. Adam hums.

“Do you want to try it?” he asks.

“What, telling ghost stories?” Pepper says. She reaches into her backpack, pulling out a huge warty toad. Adam sighs, and Dog makes a lunge.

“No, the Bloody Mary thing,” he says. Dog misses the toad and skids across the floor on a particularly glossy patch of floorboard that hadn’t been gleaming like that only five minutes ago.

“Oh.” Pepper purses her lips, examining the toad. “Brian asked me to get him a toad for something or other. A recipe or something. Do you think this one looks good?” The toad makes a low bellowing sound in her hands and slips between her fingers, somehow hopping up onto a convenient shoebox and out the window. Pepper makes a sound of protest and dives after the toad, but it’s too late.

“Toads don’t belong in recipes,” Adams says, with the firm conviction of a thirteen-year-old. Pepper just scowls, and takes her frustration out on Dog by giving him a particularly vicious tickle on the stomach that has him squirming with happiness.

“I know you did that,” she says, glaring up at Adam, who’s wearing his most innocent face. He doesn’t deign that comment with a response, and in a moment her pocket is beeping. Pepper ignores the ringtone, electing to tease Dog with the strap of her backpack instead.

“You’d better go home before your mum gets mad,” Adam says. “Let’s all meet up at Wensley’s house after tea.”

He has an Idea, and Pepper, recognizing the glint in his eyes, nods before scrambling onto his bed and diving out the window.

 

 

 

 

Wensley answers the door, and Brian, grinning, is already darting off to snag his finished problem sets before he can even shout.

“Brian!” Wensley protests, scrambling after Brian, Adam and Pepper following, stocking feet sliding along the floor. The floors of Wensley’s house are always mirror-glossy, and it makes for excellent sock skating. By the time they make it to the bedroom Brian is already hard at work copying answers, holding Wensley at bay with a waving hand.

Adam swallows a sigh. “Wensley,” he says, turning to watch him as he tries, without success, to recover his notebook. “Why didn’t you hide it?”

Wensley slips on the floor and goes down in a tangle of limbs, taking Brian with him. The notebook flies up into the air, drifting down to land in Adam’s slightly outstretched hand, falling open to the page with the final problem set on it, the one he hadn’t quite been able to make out without changing the rules of mathematics, which he has a vague suspicion would probably upset a lot of things and had best be avoided. He closes it and lays it back on the desk, but not before his gaze falls on the correct answer, and the way in which Wensley found it.

“Okay, so what are we doing?” Pepper asks, hands on her hips as she surveys the carnage on the ground. Wensley and Brian untangle themselves, glaring at each other and dusting off their clothes.

“Wensley, we’re borrowing your toilet,” Adam says decisively, and steps out into the corridor. “Come along then,” he adds; Pepper is already following but Wensley, in particular, looks confused.

“You have to use the toilet?” he asks.

“Yes,” Adams says, “but not for what you’re thinking.” He waits until they’re clustered in front of the mirror, and then turns to Pepper. “Okay, so we turn off the lights and say Bloody Mary three times?”

“Ooh,” Brian says, eyes lighting up. “Is this one of those Halloween things?” He looks excited, and Adam remembers Pepper’s comment about the toad for the recipe.

“It’s an experiment,” he says. In the mirror, Wensley looks slightly green.

“Yup,” Pepper agrees, nodding excitedly. “And then she’s supposed to come and choke you to death!” She sounds exhilarated, as though being choked to death ranks higher on a list of after tea activities than cycling down to the military base, which, upon further reflection, it probably does.

“On the count of three then,” Adam says, and reaches for the light switch. They’re swallowed in sudden darkness, and suddenly everyone’s breathing sounds very loud. Adam can feel his heart beating in his chest.

“Bloody Mary,” he says.

“Bloody Mary,” Pepper adds.

“Bloody Mary,” Brian adds enthusiastically, his knee bumping the side of Adam’s leg. Wensley doesn’t say anything, but that’s okay. They wait, but nothing happens.

“This is rubbish,” Pepper says, “I don’t know what those Americans are talking about—oh!”

There’s a dim light in the mirror now, and Adam peers forward, curiously. Suddenly, a pale face appears in the mirror, staring back at them, and lighting the toilet in a dim glow.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” the woman in the mirror says. “I was just towelling off.”

“Are you Mary?” Adam asks politely. The woman in the mirror has long hair, that’s true, and it’s wet enough that she’s drying it off with a towel, but that’s about it.

“No,” the woman sighs, setting the towel down on the counter next to the sink. “I just moved in a few days ago, and I can’t seem to take a bloody shower in peace.”

Wensley blinks at her language. Pepper just looks sympathetic.

“It must be a faulty connection,” Adam says. “We’re sorry for bothering you.”

The woman looks slightly mollified at the apology.

“You’re the first person who’s apologized,” she says. “Everyone else just screams.”

Adam nods. “That must be quite tiresome.”

“You have no idea,” the woman says, picking up the towel to resume drying her hair.

“We’ll leave you in peace then,” Adam says, and reaches across Pepper to turn on the lights. Their four reflections stare back at them in the mirror, the reflection nothing out of the ordinary.

“Well, that was interesting,” Brian says, in a tone of voice that means _I was amused for five minutes and now I probably want a snack._

“My dad was baking cookies this afternoon,” Wensley offers, looking much more settled after the polite exchange of words with the woman in the reflection.

They all troop out of the toilet, Pepper muttering something to herself that sounds a lot like, “these deluded Americans.”

Adam laughs and considers how he can pop up in other people’s mirrors.

 


End file.
